


light of the land

by protoagaz



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 20:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1662059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/protoagaz/pseuds/protoagaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the death of General Gasparde and the reunion with his sister Adelle, Shuraiya Bascùd moves to the kingdom of Alabasta, taking Adelle and old Biera with him. But for all its brightness, Alabasta is not yet the peaceful place it should be, and the remnants of Baroque Works still linger upon its sands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

He doesn't even realize the scars on his back have been torn open again, doesn't feel the pain, detached as it is by a sort of numb pressure. The sights and the sounds are sharper, pushed clearly into his senses, shadow puppets against a curtain of light. For a while the world before his eyes wavers, swinging back and forth in a slow and seductive movement, and he almost wonders why.

The first sign is muscles failing to work, rejecting the movements he struggles to make. He wants to turn and end the fight. It's gone on long enough, passing through the dusty streets and desecrating all that he's just beginning to hold dear. Anything further would do so much worse, and the fear of that thought is still a cold spring's trickle in the very furthest reaches of his mind. But for all that, his body will not turn.

Then comes the lazy, sticky slide of blood, crawling down whatever untouched skin remains on his back. He hears it dripping to the ground, wet fat drops that thud as though hailstones, and at the same time his vision blurs and flickers. Horror supersedes fear, a nauseating horror that events are repeating themselves for the third time, even while the world sways again and then pitches backward into a harsh blue sky.

When his back hits the ground, the pain finally comes.

His yell of pain hurts his own ears, but the awareness of it is buried under a hundred other screaming impulses; to run, to hide, to save what must be saved, to defeat that man who must still stand calmly behind him, and most of all to stop the pain. The muscles in his back shriek into motion under the duress of desperation, and his body arches off the ground until finally he falls face-down, trying to clutch at the dirt for some semblance of strength, pebbles grinding against his face and a nova of agony still burning across his back.

Minutes later, with each second tallied off by the pulse throbbing in his wounds, he gets his head to move, to tilt up and look at his enemy. The man still stands there, both hands in his pockets. His vision is too fuzzy to catch the details but the silence gives it away; the man is still focused entirely on him, with all the casual brutality that focus implies.

Step by step, the man begins to cross the distance toward him. He turns his head, each inch another stab of pain shooting toward his back, looking for the shovel he'd been wielding. His gaze finds it lying close by, and even the desperation of a closer death can't get his hand to move toward it.

The quiet crunches of the man's footsteps are nearly all he can hear, coupled with his own ragged breathing. Then they stop. His fingers are no closer to the shovel's handle and he closes his eyes, gritting his teeth, struggling to at least create some pain more bearable than what still clouds all his senses.

"The way people talked about you, I thought you'd have put up more of a fight...even if you're not a Devil Fruit user." The deep voice dredges up memories he'd rather have forgotten just by its similarity to Gasparde's; and the thought of Gasparde pushes his shaking hand toward the shovel with all the repressed hatred and resentment he'd thought was gone. He's a boy again, throat aching with a grief he can't show, fighting to reach out for a hope being swept away from him.

Then the man's foot slams down onto his back, and he can't even hear his own screaming in the explosion that follows.


	2. too small of a boat

Instinct and old habit almost drove Shuraiya Bascud to the railing of the ship before it docked, to jump down onto dry land. For a minute, he was his old self again, without a soul in the world to care for him, waiting just for food and bounty to hunt; it was a curious mixture of exhilarated forgetfulness and an unsettled murmuring in the back of his mind. Then the voice by his side drew him back into the present, where he stood with his sister Adelle and old Biera, waiting for the anchor to drop and their new home to settle before their eyes.

As the ship coasted along docks crowded with yelling workers, glaring light flashed off some glass in the crowd, doubling the intensity of the sun's rays. Shuraiya squinted away from it almost automatically, eyes watering. The heat was already beginning to burn the top of his head, casting his old black hat into fond memory.

"Hot, isn't it?" Biera chuckled to his left. "I've heard stories about Alabasta, but it's one of those things you have to experience for yourself."

Shuraiya risked a glance at Adelle and saw nothing but interest on her face as she clutched the railing in both hands and watched the dock workers. "I'm already starting to think we should've chosen some place a little cooler."

Leaning on the railing, Biera gazed out at the bright city with no hint of discomfort. "A place where the sun shines, that young lady said. I think we're all in need of plenty of sun."

Minutes later the ship thudded gently into port, and minutes after that they stood on the dock, luggage in a rather small pile nearby, two-story buildings spreading curved windows and domed roofs before them. The noise of the city was closer, even over the low constant whooshing of waves - footsteps that shuffled and clacked, the bray of camels, chattering voices in every pitch from bass to soprano, everything blending into a windstorm of sound. At the same time came a scent, heavy and drooping with flowers and fruit like a blooming garden in the middle of nowhere, all the stronger for the lack of sea breezes. The sudden stillness in the air magnified the sunlight until it beat down in an unbroken beam of heat on Shuraiya's back, and he could already feel the unfamiliarity of sweat on his skin. Nanohana, largest port city in the kingdom of Alabasta, looked and sounded and smelled and felt no more unwelcoming than any other of the cities he'd known, but in the same moment lived worry and anxiety, all of it born from circumstance.

Before he knew it, Adelle had rushed forward down the dock. She turned back before long, eyes alight with excitement. "Come on, bro, hurry up!"

"There's no use in standing here all day." Biera followed with a tolerant smile, much more slowly.

For a while Shuraiya watched them, pushing back the automatic need to overthink his situation. Settling into the city was barely an issue, as long as his companions were happy, no matter the lingering sense of displacement that came with having people to look after. He'd long since abandoned the jacket that told others he was the Pirate Executioner, and for all that only months had passed, even the death of Gasparde only crossed through the landscapes of his dreams once in the greatest while. In some ways, even the nervousness he felt was more welcome than that constant wondering from the past - that endless sense of preparation for trouble.

Finally he gathered up the luggage and followed the others, toward the vague cloud of dust that floated across the city.

The first of the buildings were beginning to cast their comforting shadows between himself and the sun when the cannon fire rang out, loud as a thunderclap over the city's quiet bustle.

Shuraiya's body nearly didn't react, as used to the sound as it was; and then a building the next street away erupted in a roaring shower of plaster, and his mind jolted awake. In the space of a blink he'd caught up to Adelle and Biera and his hands were empty, the luggage left behind. The screaming began, people running past them, barely any risking the slightest of glances over their shoulders; Shuraiya snatched up Adelle's hand, her surprised yelp lost in the noise of more cannon fire, and ran with nothing in his mind but getting her away.

"Pirates," came the yells from the crowd. Sudden fury welled up in Shuraiya's stomach and he swore under his breath, shoving past a knot of straggling women by brute force alone.

"They were planning this all along!" one of the women wailed as they passed. "They're never going to leave us alone!"

Shuraiya turned a corner, all but dragging Adelle behind him, and nearly ran face-first into a giant brown form. It took several feet of stumbling backwards to see that it was a camel - a camel wearing an expression of aloof exasperation blended with panic - and an instant later his mind showed him a way out and relief flooded in. He lifted Adelle off the ground entirely, tossed her onto the camel's back, turned to see Biera just catching up and bundled him onto the camel with the faintest twinge of guilt. "Get as far away from here as you can!" He nearly had to yell before his voice carried above the screaming.

"Don't do it!" Biera shouted back. "There's enough space here for the three of us!"

Adelle stared silently at him with wide eyes, the fear in them enough to make Shuraiya realize just what his expression must have been. "Sorry," he yelled back, and forced a smile. "I'm not a kid this time."

Just as he turned the corner back onto the main street, he heard Adelle shout his name.

The street was already less crowded, and at its very edge faint shapes flickered, their postures and the blades of their glittering swords as familiar as memories of those he'd fought and killed. There were pirates here, and they were as tough as the Grand Line demanded. He picked up his pace, splitting focus between the moving figures before him and the buildings flashing by at the edges of his vision, searching for a weapon.

The gleam of a long kitchen knife abandoned on a doorstep caught his eye and he stopped to snatch it up and weigh it in his hand. It was heavy, the blade unbalanced with more steel than necessary, but at the same time there was a strange angry joy in having a weapon in his hand, for all that he could cope without one. He let the old smile cross his face and ran forward again, already catching the grins being slashed over the pirates' faces in turn as they recognized a foe.

One or two of them drew guns as he got closer, snarling out challenges; it was a simple matter to dodge the bullets in the wide abandoned street. At one side he found a barrel cover and paused for an instant to whip it at the gunmen, the sweat on his palm nearly making his aim miss entirely. The cover arced dangerously in midair, wobbling even as it collided with one of the gunmen and knocked him into his friends.

Shuraiya swatted his hair out of his line of sight, pushing his lungs to take in the burning hot air. At the same time, a few other pirates darted from a nearby doorway, hoisting their swords and charging the minute they laid eyes on him. He dodged away from them backward into another open doorway, brandishing his knife at them; true to form, they made no attempt to slow down as they grew closer, and it took him even less effort than he'd expected to jump and catch hold of the doorframe in both hands, swinging to kick them solidly to the ground.

When he landed they were still sprawled haphazardly in front of the doorway, both of them knocked out cold. His fingers slid across the knife's handle, reminding him of its existence, and for the briefest of moments a harsh urge to stab them both shuddered up his spine, pushing him on and on until he felt his lips draw back from gritted teeth in a grin that was nothing remotely like a smile. Then came another cannon shot, another wave of building plaster sweeping by in a sudden breeze, and the yelling of more pirates as they burst towards him, and even the wave of nausea that swelled up in response to his own feelings disappeared under the need to fight.

He darted away from the pirates as they charged, grabbing the open barrel and shoving it at them. A quick backwards glance saw one of them trip and tumble into the doorway, yelling as he flailed away from impaling himself on his own sword. The others dodged, growling epithets at Shuraiya, and charged again.

Minutes went by as he led them through the streets near the docks, and across the docks themselves - minutes that saw his shirt soak through with sweat and his knife blade slide dangerously close to his skin, minutes that picked off each pirate one by one but left the most formidable fighters behind with growing fury. None of them had touched him by the time his breathing turned to ragged gasps under the glare of the sun, but their slashes and bullets had grown closer and closer, and there was clearly more to come.

As he snatched up some small crate from the docks to use as a shield - or a projectile, depending on what his instincts told him - the crisp snap of sails rang out like gunshots behind him, coupled with hailing voices that told him what he'd dreaded most. The pirate nearest to him was equally distracted, knocked into the water by a hurl of the crate, and in the free moment Shuraiya glanced over his shoulder and nearly groaned in dismay.

Another ship was inching nearer and nearer to the dock, bearing a flag he didn't even recognize and a horde of crewmembers already roaring for blood at the edges of its deck. The pirates behind him roared back; a bullet whizzed past his ear and dismay vanished in the face of the hasty desire to stay alive. He judged the distance of a leap to another dock, took the quickest running start he could, whacked a larger crate with the side of his fist to block the pirates' path, and then he was on an empty dock with a mind desperately spinning its gears.

Getting back into the city, to the smaller alleys with no threat of drowning or cannon fire, was his best bet to survive. It was obvious logic and strategy, but neither logic nor strategy could find a way through his thoughts to tell him how to stop almost two whole crews from attacking the city he'd barely gotten to see. Already the heavy clank of the ship's anchor was echoing its way across the water, and the pirates' footsteps rattled through the dock's worn planking.

"You've faced worse odds before," he said to himself, feeling the old smile cross his face again. "Yeah...you have."

The corner of his eye showed him pirates rushing to cut off his escape, and his body flashed into motion before his mind had allowed it. Sea air rushed across his face, pulling his sweat-soaked hair loose, as he ran down the docks and bolted for the city.

He'd reached the opening of the main street when more gunfire whipped past him. The street was empty, drained of tools to use by his own fights in it only minutes past; he gripped the knife in both hands and spun to face the crush of oncoming pirates, forcing breaths through his nose and dredging up knowledge of hand-to-hand combat he preferred not to use. Sunlight glared off the pirates' swords, dueling with the pulse that pounded in his ears and the sweat trickling slow and sadistic down his back.

Just as his mind beginning to consider an ultimate decision to flee, a monstrous shadow crossed the sun - wide enough to cast both ends of the street into darkness, tapering into a wicked beak. Shuraiya's head whipped up almost automatically and he found himself staring at a giant bird.

The bird beat its wings, beak gleaming as bright as the swords, until the wind whipped up from its flight dried the sweat on Shuraiya's forehead and blew his hair into a tangle around his face. The pirates were shouting in confusion nearby, but his mind barely had the freedom to comprehend their existence; an instant later the bird had landed, placed solidly between himself and the pirates, wings folding and body rippling until it formed itself into the shape of a tall robed man.

Shuraiya belatedly realized his mouth had been gaping open throughout the scene. He swallowed, tasting the grit of sand and some cloying sweet perfume on his tongue, as the man turned toward him.

"There is no need for you to continue fighting." The man's face was equally hawklike, pale and grim with long dark tattoos stretching down his cheeks, and his voice held no sign of worry despite the pirates still crowded behind him.

For an instant Shuraiya was going to deny it, was going to take comfort in his newfound ally and run forward to battle. His body nearly longed for it with the sharp ache of adrenaline, and he let himself grin, the anticipation of a winning fight sharpening his senses almost unbearably.

Then Adelle's face shot into his mind, cancelling out any other thought he might have had as her voice shouting his name echoed across his hearing. The adrenaline remained, casting each pirate's face into clarity beyond the murky cloud that still swirled around the tall robed man; he could hear their confused voices, feel the rough wood of the knife handle biting into his palm. It only worsened with each second until his stillness felt unnatural and his legs were shaking, and still Adelle's face stayed in his mind's eye, purple eyes brimming with terror and hair dulled with dust and sand.

He gulped in a breath and turned and ran.


End file.
